Bay of Many Boats

The Burmester family of Christchurch retreats to its holiday home in the Marlborough Sounds’ Bay of Many Coves to be with friends and enjoy its classic boats.

Words: Kate Coughlan  Photographs: Kevin Emirali

Phillip whirls off with his guests on a dusk
cocktail cruise around the Marlborough Sounds'
many bays.

PHILLIP BURMESTER’S BEEN MAD ABOUT BOATS since he was a boy. He thinks it began when his grandparents purchased a Marlborough Sounds beauty spot, Furneaux (which is now a lodge), as a holiday home in the 1950s. During his summers with them he began a love affair that looks like lasting a lifetime. “We had to go to Furneaux and back by boat and then we had boats to play with when we were there, and I’ve been keen on boats ever since,” says the low-key businessman whose property holdings place him among the largest private landowners in the country.

Business is business, but boats are something else. Beautiful boats, only beautiful boats, ignite a passion in him. It didn’t surprise him to learn that he is descended from a line of Polish shipbuilders. He’s had dozens of boats in his life – so far. His first was a Hartley jet boat, a Jet 44, and then he progressed into yachts with a Ben Lexon A Class named Volante which the family sailed for 15 years around the Nelson and Marlborough coastlines. His largest craft was a very flash 18m motor launch named Matarangi that was leased to the Prada syndicate for use as a sponsors’ boat during the America’s Cup.

Actually, Phillip isn’t entirely sure how many boats he has now – not precisely. Down at the jetty there are two inflatable runabouts, one of which belongs to son Jack who, at 14, is following closely in his father’s wake. Jack rows for Christ’s College and, when he’s on holiday in the Sounds, zips about in his red inflatable. He does this with such skill that NZ Life & Leisure begs him to try to produce a perfect heart-shaped wake. With photographer Kevin perched on the handiest hill and editor Kate on the end of the jetty to relay shouted instructions between skipper and photographer, Jack whirls his boat in and out of a heart shape. A love heart, written on the surface of the ocean – thanks Jack for that happy summer message to NZ Life & Leisure readers (see below). He reckons he could have done better on a jet ski. He’d have had more speed and better manoeuvrability but jet skis, most definitely, do not fall into the Burmester category of desirable seacraft.

Behind the boatshed is a cute clinker dinghy. Now there’s art on the sea. A couple of kayaks also qualify, as does the slender wooden-hulled rowing skiff originally from the Cambridge Boat Club. It spent 70 years at Christ’s College in Christchurch before finding its current resting place, suspended beneath the living-room ceiling in the Burmester’s boatshed-style bach. But the undoubted glamour boats of the collection are the three beauties lying peacefully at their moorings just off the wharf at the end of the lawn. The trio represents the finest examples of boat design and building in the 1930s, 40s and 2000s.

Is there a favourite? “No, I love them all for their individual qualities. Every one of them is a special boat. Take Baelena II. It’s a whale chaser, one of 12 built in 1949 in Picton for the Perano family – the famous Marlborough Sounds whaling family.

“It holds the record for the most whales caught and, maybe not such a nice thing to think about these days but important to the history of that boat, it was the last one from which a whale was harpooned in New Zealand waters. It’s really a scaled-down patrol boat and no weather can ever stop this one. Even a three-metre swell won’t deter her. I’ve never had to throttle her back no matter what the seas. She’s just like a submarine sometimes, with water right over the top of her.”

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